My personal "dreams" have become much less extravagant as I've aged. ;-)

For the record, I never, EVER use the console view. Nothing against it, it just doesn't give me everything I need and my workflow tends to need to see the project over time to make decisions.
 
I think SONAR's representation of sends is left over from the analog days, when these were finite. A console only has so many aux sends. With it being unlimited, I think SONAR...well heck every DAW I've ever used, still uses the old school console metaphor which limits us visually. I mean, heck we still use emulations of knobs. KNOBS! Where in the mouse-driven world does trying to emulate a circle make sense?
 
Anyhow, so yeah I don't think any DAW I've seen has figured out how to elegantly display all the limitless possibilities now on tap. The Pro-Channel's Quad Curve Flyout is a pretty good step in the right direction though.
 
And with modulation options only expanding more and more, I think the need to see more complicated signal flow is becoming apparent!
 

Thus far, I'm very pleased with the Gibson acquisition of Cakewalk/Sonar.
 
The company has been communicative with the end-users, the roll-out of X3 was pretty smooth (as were the subsequent b, c, d, and e patches), and it's great to have Craig Anderton as a liaison to "bridge the gaps" between Gibson/Cakewalk and end-users.  
 
Although the chain-of-command (and the scenario) is different, it somewhat reminds me of the "good old days" when Greg Hendershot used to pop-in from time-to-time.  Makes you feel like someone is listening and paying attention. That doesn't mean all wishes will be full-filled, but it does go a long way toward promoting good-will and good morale.
Feels like the application is in good hands...
 
Keep up the good work!! 

scook
I rarely use the console view.

And here I was thinking the console view was the center of the world.  What am I missing ?
 
I'm curious, scook, speaking as a complete noob, as to how you work if you don't use the console ?
 
What other view(s) offer/s a better interface ?
 

I work mostly in the track and piano roll views.

Track view man! You can see everything (well, issues in this thread aside), plus those more detailed mix things like automation, clip-based effects or edits...track view all the way. Maybe it's from some dysfunctional need to see the actual audio clips...I suppose I COULD mix with the console...but while it concentrates a lot of controls in one place, the ones it doesn't give me are the reasons I don't  bother with it.
 
And man, lemme tell ya I've tried to use screensets but am consistently befuddled by them. And, they have a huge lag on my machine. And finally the whole "first you switch to a screen set and then edit it, no need to save" model is completely opposite of every other way of working with data so you always screw them up. (I mention all this because someone said just pop the console in the dock and create a screenset with it)
 
Second to having Craig on-board here. He's great!

Yea, automation and clip waveforms mean more to me than graphical representations of faders and knobs. And there are no limits to FX and sends displayed but this is not my primary concern.

 
Thanks for that !  I just discovered that you can adjust volume, pan, etc from the track view.
But you have to stretch the lefthand side for the controls to appear.
I don't think I've ever seem them till now.
 
EDIT:  Ok, you can stretch vertically as well.  I just never noticed that you could operate the controls...

I hardly ever used console view until the X series, but these days I set everything up just the way I want in track view, then use console view for its intended purpose - mixing and automation. I find it gets me in the right frame of mind to focus on the mix, and the track view is only a click away if I need it for editing.
 
But, that's what's so cool about  Sonar...it can satisfy a lot of different workflows, and even accommodate people like me whose needs change over time. 

Anderton
Bumping because I'm kind of curious why there are 94 views and no comments. I guess everyone either thought "Duh, that's obvious," "I don't care," or "Wow, that's really a dumb post" 

Is this a multiple choice quiz? I'm really stumped by the answer selections.
 
Anyway, now that there's 30 comments I'll add one 2.
 
I don't usually post a reply after I read a post unless I have a question, have the same problem, have an answer to the problem, or I don't have anything else to do at the moment and want to boost my post count.... just kidding. Post count is the only reason I ever post anything.
 
I'm not one of the 94 original "viewers", (I think I'm like #762 or something), but to be fair, whenever I reach the level of answer #2, it's after reading the title, so I almost never even view the post. On this note, it's cool that you only have to hoover over the title to see what's written.